Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.[13] Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley.[14] The university is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.[15]

The university is organized around seven schools: three schools consisting of 40 academic departments at the undergraduate level as well as four professional schools that focus on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business. All schools are on the same campus. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the Division I FBSPac-12 Conference. It has gained 126 NCAA team championships,[16] and Stanford has won the NACDA Directors' Cup for 24 consecutive years, beginning in 1994–1995.[17] In addition, Stanford students and alumni have won 270 Olympic medals including 139 gold medals.[18]

History

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanford's previous Palo Alto farm. Despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I. The Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), established in 1962, performs research in particle physics.[51]

Jane and Leland Stanford modeled their university after the great eastern universities, most specifically Cornell University. Stanford opened being called the "Cornell of the West" in 1891 due to faculty being former Cornell affiliates (either professors, alumni, or both) including its first president, David Starr Jordan. Both Cornell and Stanford were among the first to have higher education be accessible, nonsectarian, and open to women as well as to men. Cornell is credited as one of the first American universities to adopt this radical departure from traditional education, and Stanford became an early adopter as well.[52]

Golf course and a seasonal lake: The university also has its own golf course and a seasonal lake (Lake Lagunita, actually an irrigation reservoir), both home to the vulnerable California tiger salamander. As of 2012 Lake Lagunita was often dry and the university had no plans to artificially fill it.[58]

Study abroad locations: unlike typical study abroad programs, Stanford itself operates in several locations around the world; thus, each location has Stanford faculty-in-residence and staff in addition to students, creating a "mini-Stanford."[59]

China: Stanford Center at Peking University, housed in the Lee Jung Sen Building, is a small center for researchers and students in collaboration with Peking University.[60][61]

Locations in development:

Redwood City: in 2005, the university purchased a small, 35-acre (14 ha) campus in Midpoint Technology Park intended for staff offices; development was delayed by The Great Recession.[62][63] In 2015 the university announced a development plan.[64]

Lake Lagunita in winter; the Dish, a large radio telescope and local landmark, is visible in the Stanford-owned foothills behind the lake and is the high point of a popular campus jogging and walking trail.

Faculty residences

Many Stanford faculty members live in the "Faculty Ghetto", within walking or biking distance of campus.[65] The Faculty Ghetto is composed of land owned entirely by Stanford. Similar to a condominium, the houses can be bought and sold but the land under the houses is rented on a 99-year lease. Houses in the "Ghetto" appreciate and depreciate, but not as rapidly as overall Silicon Valley values.

The Board appoints a President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university and prescribe the duties of professors and course of study, manage financial and business affairs, and appoint nine vice presidents.[76] The Provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report.[77][78]Persis Drell became the 13th Provost in February 2017.

As of 2018, the university was organized into seven academic schools.[79] The schools of Humanities and Sciences (27 departments),[80]Engineering (9 departments),[81] and Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (4 departments)[82] have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of Law, Medicine, Education and Business have graduate programs only. The powers and authority of the faculty are vested in the Academic Council, which is made up of tenure and non-tenure line faculty, research faculty, senior fellows in some policy centers and institutes, the president of the university, and some other academic administrators, but most matters are handled by the Faculty Senate, made up of 55 elected representatives of the faculty.[83]

The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford University and all registered students are members. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a ticket by the entire student body.[84]

Stanford is the beneficiary of a special clause in the California Constitution, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.[85]

Endowment and donations

The university's endowment, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $27.7 billion as of August 31, 2019.[4] Payouts from the Stanford endowment covered approximately 21.8% of university expenses in the 2019 fiscal year.[4] In the 2018 NACUBO-TIAA survey of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, only Harvard University, the University of Texas System, and Yale University had larger endowments than Stanford.[86]

In 2006, President John L. Hennessy launched a five-year campaign called the Stanford Challenge, which reached its $4.3 billion fundraising goal in 2009, two years ahead of time, but continued fundraising for the duration of the campaign. It concluded on December 31, 2011, having raised a total of $6.23 billion and breaking the previous campaign fundraising record of $3.88 billion held by Yale.[87][88] Specifically, the campaign raised $253.7 million for undergraduate financial aid, as well as $2.33 billion for its initiative in "Seeking Solutions" to global problems, $1.61 billion for "Educating Leaders" by improving K-12 education, and $2.11 billion for "Foundation of Excellence" aimed at providing academic support for Stanford students and faculty. Funds supported 366 new fellowships for graduate students, 139 new endowed chairs for faculty, and 38 new or renovated buildings. The new funding also enabled the construction of a facility for stem cell research; a new campus for the business school; an expansion of the law school; a new Engineering Quad; a new art and art history building; an on-campus concert hall; a new art museum; and a planned expansion of the medical school, among other things.[89][90] In 2012, the university raised $1.035 billion, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.[15]

Academics

Teaching and learning

Walkway in the Main Quad

Stanford follows a quarter system with the Autumn quarter usually starting in late September and the Spring Quarter ending in early June.[91] The full-time, four-year undergraduate program has an arts and sciences focus with high graduate student coexistence.[91] Stanford is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.[92]

Full-time undergraduate tuition was $42,690 for 2013–2014.[8] Stanford's admission process is need-blind for US citizens and permanent residents; while it is not need-blind for international students, 64% are on need-based aid, with an average aid package of $31,411.[8] In 2012–13, the university awarded $126 million in need-based financial aid to 3,485 students, with an average aid package of $40,460.[8] Eighty percent of students receive some form of financial aid.[8] Stanford has a no-loan policy.[8] For undergraduates admitted in 2015, Stanford waives tuition, room, and board for most families with incomes below $65,000, and most families with incomes below $125,000 are not required to pay tuition; those with incomes up to $150,000 may have tuition significantly reduced.[93] 17% of students receive Pell Grants,[8] a common measure of low-income students at a college.

Libraries and digital resources

As of 2014, Stanford University Libraries (SUL) held a collection of more than 9.3 million volumes, nearly 300,000 rare or special books, 1.5 million e-books, 2.5 million audiovisual materials, 77,000 serials, nearly 6 million microform holdings, and thousands of other digital resources.[97]

The main library in the SU library system is Green Library, which also contains various meeting and conference rooms, study spaces, and reading rooms. Lathrop Library (previously Meyer Library, demolished in 2015), holds various student-accessible media resources and houses one of the largest East Asia collections with 540,000 volumes.

Arts

Stanford is home to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, a museum with 24 galleries, sculpture gardens, terraces, and a courtyard first established in 1891 by Jane and Leland Stanford as a memorial to their only child. The Center's collection of works by Rodin is among the largest in the world[98] The Thomas Welton Stanford Gallery, which was built in 1917, serves as a teaching resource for the Department of Art & Art History as well as an exhibition venue. In 2014, Stanford opened the Anderson Collection, a new museum focused on postwar American art and founded by the donation of 121 works by food service moguls Mary and Harry Anderson.[99][100][101] There are outdoor art installations throughout the campus, primarily sculptures, but some murals as well. The Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden near Roble Hall features includes wood carvings and "totem poles."

Notably, Stanford ranks high and often first in many domestic college ranking measures, leading Slate to dub Stanford in 2014 as "the Harvard of the 21st century,"[119] and The New York Times in the same year to conclude that "Stanford University has become America's 'it' school, by measures that Harvard once dominated."[120] From polls done by The Princeton Review in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, the most commonly named "dream college" for students was Stanford; separately, parents, too, most frequently named Stanford their "dream college."[121] The inaugural 2017 Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings picked Stanford as the No. 1 school in the United States.[122]

Computer and applied sciences

Internet—Stanford University was the site where the original design of the Internet was undertaken. Vint Cerf led a research group to elaborate the design of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP) that he originally co-created with Robert E. Kahn (Bob Kahn) in 1973 and which formed the basis for the architecture of the Internet.

Klystron tube – invented by the brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian at Stanford. Their prototype was completed and demonstrated successfully on August 30, 1937.[140] Upon publication in 1939, news of the klystron immediately influenced the work of U.S. and UK researchers working on radar equipment.

Businesses and entrepreneurship

Stanford is one of the most successful universities in creating companies and licensing its inventions to existing companies; it is often held up as a model for technology transfer.[40][41] Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing is responsible for commercializing university research, intellectual property, and university-developed projects.

The university is described as having a strong venture culture in which students are encouraged, and often funded, to launch their own companies.[42]

Companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world.[46]

Some companies closely associated with Stanford and their connections include:

Cisco, 1984, founders Leonard Bosack (M.S) and Sandy Lerner (M.S) who were in charge of Stanford Computer Science and Graduate School of Business computer operations groups respectively when the hardware was developed.[143]

^adjusted for US citizens and permanent residents only since racial breakdown in the Stanford data is not given for students here on temporary visas. The census data for California and the United States as a whole does include people who are here on temporary visas or who are undocumented.

^ abcThe data for graduate students merges Asian with Pacific Islander. Also no separate category for multiple races.

Stanford enrolled 6,996 undergraduate[8] and 10,253 graduate students[8] as of the 2019–2020 school year. Women comprised 50.4% of undergraduates and 41.5% of graduate students.[8] In the same academic year, the freshman retention rate was 99%.

Stanford awarded 1,819 undergraduate degrees, 2,393 master's degrees, 770 doctoral degrees, and 3270 professional degrees in the 2018–2019 school year.[8] The four-year graduation rate for the class of 2017 cohort was 72.9%, and the six-year rate was 94.4%.[8] The relatively low four-year graduation rate is a function of the university's coterminal degree (or "coterm") program, which allows students to earn a master's degree as a 1-to-2–year extension of their undergraduate program.[146]

As of 2010, fifteen percent of undergraduates were first-generation students.[147]

Dormitories and student housing

As of 2013, 89% of undergraduate students lived in on-campus university housing. First-year undergraduates are required to live on campus, and all undergraduates are guaranteed housing for all four undergraduate years.[8][148] Undergraduates live in 80 different houses, including dormitories, co-ops, row houses, and fraternities and sororities.[149] At Manzanita Park, 118 mobile homes were installed as "temporary" housing from 1969 to 1991, but as of 2015 was the site of newer dorms Castano, Kimball, Lantana, and the Humanities House, completed in 2015.[150][151] Most student residences are just outside the campus core, within ten minutes (on foot or bike) of most classrooms and libraries. Some are reserved for freshman, sophomores, or upperclass students and some are open to all four classes. Most residences are co-ed; seven are all-male fraternities, three are all-female sororities, and there is also one all-female non-sorority house, Roth House. In most residences, men and women live on the same floor, but a few dorms are configured for men and women to live on separate floors (single-gender floors).[152]

Co-ops or "Self-Ops" are another housing option. These houses feature cooperative living, where residents and eating associates each contribute work to keep the house running, such as cooking meals or cleaning shared spaces. These houses have unique themes around which their community is centered. Many co-ops are hubs of music, art and philosophy. The co-ops on campus are 576 Alvarado Row (formerly Chi Theta Chi), Columbae, Enchanted Broccoli Forest (EBF), Hammarskjöld, Kairos, Terra (the unofficial LGBT house),[155] and Synergy.[156] Phi Sigma, at 1018 Campus Drive was formerly Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, but in 1973 became a Self-Op.[157]

As of 2015 around 55 percent of the graduate student population lived on campus.[158] First-year graduate students are guaranteed on-campus housing. Stanford also subsidizes off-campus apartments in nearby Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Mountain View for graduate students who are guaranteed on-campus housing but are unable to live on campus due to a lack of space.[159]

Stanford has had at least one NCAA team champion every year since the 1976–77 school year[166] and has earned 126 NCAA national team titles since its establishment, the most among universities,[16] and Stanford has won 522 individual national championships, the most by any university.[167] Stanford has won the award for the top-ranked Division 1 athletic program — the NACDA Directors' Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup – annually for the past twenty-four straight years.[168][169][170][171] Stanford athletes have won medals in every Olympic Games since 1912, winning 270 Olympic medals total, 139 of them gold.[172] In the 2008 Summer Olympics, and 2016 Summer Olympics, Stanford won more Olympic medals than any other university in the United States.[173][174] Stanford athletes won 16 medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics (12 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze), and 27 medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics.[175]

Traditions

Vintage Stanford University postcard

The unofficial motto of Stanford University, selected by President Jordan, is "Die Luft der Freiheit weht."[176] Translated from the German language, this quotation from Ulrich von Hutten means, "The wind of freedom blows." The motto was controversial during World War I, when anything in German was suspect; at that time the university disavowed that this motto was official.[1]

"Hail, Stanford, Hail!" is the Stanford Hymn sometimes sung at ceremonies or adapted by the various University singing groups. It was written in 1892 by mechanical engineering professor Albert W. Smith and his wife, Mary Roberts Smith (in 1896 she earned the first Stanford doctorate in Economics and later became associate professor of Sociology), but was not officially adopted until after a performance on campus in March 1902 by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.[177][178]

Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman: Stanford does not award honorary degrees,[179][180] but in 1953 the degree of Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman was created to recognize individuals who give rare and extraordinary service to the University. Technically, this degree is awarded by the Stanford Associates, a voluntary group that is part of the university's alumni association. As Stanford's highest honor, it is not conferred at prescribed intervals, but only when appropriate to recognize extraordinary service. Recipients include Herbert Hoover, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Lucile Packard, and John Gardner.[181]

Big Game events: The events in the week leading up to the Big Game vs. UC Berkeley, including Gaieties (a musical written, composed, produced, and performed by the students of Ram's Head Theatrical Society),[182]

Viennese Ball: a formal ball with waltzes that was initially started in the 1970s by students returning from the now-closed Stanford in Vienna overseas program.[183] It is now open to all students.

Mausoleum Party: An annual Halloween Party at the Stanford Mausoleum, the final resting place of Leland Stanford Jr. and his parents. A 20-year tradition, the Mausoleum party was on hiatus from 2002 to 2005 due to a lack of funding, but was revived in 2006.[184] In 2008, it was hosted in Old Union rather than at the actual Mausoleum, because rain prohibited generators from being rented.[185] In 2009, after fundraising efforts by the Junior Class Presidents and the ASSU Executive, the event was able to return to the Mausoleum despite facing budget cuts earlier in the year.[186]

Former campus traditions include the Big Game bonfire on Lake Lagunita (a seasonal lake usually dry in the fall), which was formally ended in 1997 because of the presence of endangered salamanders in the lake bed.[187]

Religious life

Students and staff at Stanford are of many different religions. The Stanford Office for Religious Life's mission is "to guide, nurture and enhance spiritual, religious and ethical life within the Stanford University community" by promoting enriching dialogue, meaningful ritual, and enduring friendships among people of all religious backgrounds. It is headed by a dean with the assistance of a senior associate dean and an associate dean.
Stanford Memorial Church, in the center of campus, has a Sunday University Public Worship service (UPW) usually in the "Protestant Ecumenical Christian" tradition where the Memorial Church Choir sings and a sermon is preached usually by one of the Stanford deans for Religious Life. UPW sometimes has multifaith services.[188] In addition, the church is used by the Catholic community and by some of the other Christian denominations at Stanford. Weddings happen most Saturdays and the university has for over 20 years allowed blessings of same-gender relationships and now legal weddings.

In addition to the church, the Office for Religious Life has a Center for Inter-Religious Community, Learning and Experiences (CIRCLE) on the third floor of Old Union. It offers a common room, an interfaith sanctuary, a seminar room, a student lounge area, and a reading room, as well as offices housing a number of Stanford Associated Religions (SAR) member groups and the Senior Associate Dean and Associate Dean for Religious Life. Most though not all religious student groups belong to SAR. The SAR directory includes organizations that serve atheist, Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islam, Jewish, and Sikh groups, though these groups vary year by year.[189]
The Windhover Contemplation Center was dedicated in October 2014, and was intended to provide spiritual sanctuary for students and staff in the midst of their course and work schedules; the center displays the "Windhover" paintings by Nathan Oliveira, the late Stanford professor and artist.[190]

Some religions have a larger and more formal presence on campus in addition to the student groups; these include the Catholic Community at Stanford[191] and Hillel at Stanford.[192]

Greek life

Fraternities and sororities have been active on the Stanford campus since 1891, when the university first opened. In 1944, University President Donald Tresidder banned all Stanford sororities due to extreme competition.[193] However, following Title IX, the Board of Trustees lifted the 33-year ban on sororities in 1977.[194] Students are not permitted to join a fraternity or sorority until spring quarter of their freshman year.[195]

As of 2016 Stanford had 31 Greek organizations, including 14 sororities and 16 fraternities. Nine of the Greek organizations were housed (eight in University-owned houses and one, Sigma Chi, in their own house, although the land is owned by the University[196]). Six chapters were members of the African American Fraternal and Sororal Association, 11 chapters were members of the Interfraternity Council, seven chapters belonged to the Intersorority Council, and six chapters belonged to the Multicultural Greek Council.[197]

Student groups

As of 2020, Stanford had more than 600 student organizations.[200] Groups are often, though not always, partially funded by the University via allocations directed by the student government organization, the ASSU. These funds include "special fees", which are decided by a Spring Quarter vote by the student body. Groups span Athletics/Recreation (see section on Athletics), Careers/Pre-professional, Community Service, Ethnic/Cultural, Fraternities/Sororities, Health/Counseling, Media/Publications, Music/Dance/Creative Arts (see section on Arts), Political/Social Awareness and Religious/Philosophical.

Stanford is home to a set of student journalism publications. The Stanford Daily is a student-run daily newspaper and has been published since the University was founded in 1892.[201] The student-run radio station, KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM, features freeform music programming, sports commentary, and news segments; it started in 1947 as an AM radio station.[202]The Stanford Review is a conservative student newspaper founded in 1987.[203]The Fountain Hopper (FoHo) is a financially independent, anonymous student-run campus rag publication, notable for having broken the Brock Turner story.[204]

Stanford is also home to a large number of pre-professional student organizations, organized around missions from startup incubation to paid consulting. The Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) is one of the largest professional organizations in Silicon Valley, with over 5,000 members.[citation needed] Its goal is to support the next generation of entrepreneurs.[citation needed]StartX is a non-profit startup accelerator for student and faculty-led startups[205] that over 12% of the study body has applied to.[citation needed] It is staffed primarily by students.[citation needed] Stanford Women In Business (SWIB) is an on-campus business organization, aimed at helping Stanford women find paths to success in the generally male-dominated technology industry.[206] Stanford Marketing is a student group that provides students hands-on training through research and strategy consulting projects with Fortune 500 clients, as well as workshops led by people from industry and professors in the Stanford Graduate School of Business.[207][208] Stanford Finance provides mentoring and internships for students who want to enter a career in finance. Students run SUpost.com, an online marketplace for Stanford students and alumni, in partnership with Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE) and the Stanford Pre-Business Association.[209][better source needed] The latter is intended to build connections among industry, alumni, and student communities.[citation needed]

Other groups include:

The Stanford Axe Committee is the official guardian of the Stanford Axe and the rest of the time assists the Stanford Band as a supplementary spirit group. It has existed since 1982.[210]

Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO) which hosts the annual Stanford Powwow started in 1971. This is the largest student run event on campus and the largest student run powwow in the country.[211][212]

The Stanford Improvisors (SIMPS for short) teach and perform improvisational theatre on campus and in the surrounding community.[213] In 2014 the group finished second in the Golden Gate Regional College Improv tournament[214] and they've since been invited twice to perform at the annual San Francisco Improv Festival.[215]

Asha for Education is a national student group founded in 1991. It focuses mainly on education in India and supporting nonprofit organizations that work mainly in the education sector. Asha's Stanford chapter organizes events like Holi as well as lectures by prominent leaders from India the university campus.[216][217][218]

Safety

Stanford's Department of Public Safety is responsible for law enforcement and safety on the main campus. Its deputy sheriffs are peace officers by arrangement with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.[219] The department is also responsible for publishing an annual crime report covering the previous three years as required by the Clery Act.[220] Fire protection has been provided by contract with the Palo Alto Fire Department since 1976.[221]

Murder is rare on the campus though a few of the cases have been notorious including Theodore Streleski's murder of his professor in 1978 and the unsolved 1974 murder of Arlis Perry in Stanford Memorial Church.[222]

In 2014, Stanford University was the tenth highest in the nation in "total of reports of rape" on their main campus, with 26 reports of rape.[223]

In Stanford University's 2015 Campus Climate Survey, 4.7 percent of female undergraduates reported experiencing sexual assault as defined by the university and 32.9 percent reported experiencing sexual misconduct.[224] According to the survey, 85% of perpetrators of misconduct were Stanford students and 80% were men.[224] Perpetrators of sexual misconduct were frequently aided by alcohol or drugs, according to the survey: "Nearly three-fourths of the students whose responses were categorized as sexual assault indicated that the act was accomplished by a person or person taking advantage of them when they were drunk or high, according to the survey. Close to 70 percent of students who reported an experience of sexual misconduct involving nonconsensual penetration and/or oral sex indicated the same."[224] Associated Students of Stanford University and student and alumni activists with the anti-rape group Stand with Leah criticized the survey methodology for downgrading incidents involving alcohol if students did not check two separate boxes indicating they were both intoxicated and incapacity while sexually assaulted.[224] Reporting on the Brock Turner rape case, a reporter from The Washington Post analyzed campus rape reports submitted by universities to the U.S. Department of Education, and found that Stanford was one of the top ten universities in campus rapes in 2014, with 26 reported that year, but when analyzed by rapes per 1000 students, Stanford was not among the top ten.[225]

People v. Turner

On the night of January 17–18, 2015, 22-year-old Chanel Miller, who had visited campus to attend a party at the Kappa Alpha fraternity, was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a freshman who had a swimming scholarship. Two graduate students witnessed the attack and intervened, catching Turner when he tried to flee and holding him down on the ground until police arrived.[226] Stanford immediately referred the case to prosecutors and offered Miller counseling, and within two weeks had barred Turner from campus after conducting an investigation.[227] Turner was convicted on three felony charges in March 2016 and in June 2016 he received a jail sentence of six months and was declared a sex offender, requiring him to register as such for the rest of his life; prosecutors had sought a six-year prison sentence out of the maximum 14 years that was possible.[228] The case and the relatively lenient sentence drew nationwide attention.[229] Two years later the judge in the case, Stanford graduate Aaron Persky, was recalled by the voters.[230]

Joe Lonsdale

In February 2015, Elise Clougherty filed a sexual assault and harassment lawsuit against venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.[231][232] Lonsdale and Clougherty entered into a relationship in the spring of 2012 when she was a junior and he was her mentor in a Stanford entrepreneurship course.[232] By the spring of 2013 Clougherty had broken off the relationship and filed charges at Stanford that Lonsdale had broken the Stanford policy against consensual relationships between students and faculty and that he had sexually assaulted and harassed her, which resulted in Lonsdale being banned from Stanford for 10 years.[232] Lonsdale challenged Stanford's finding that he had had sexually assaulted and harassed her and Stanford rescinded that finding and the campus ban in the fall of 2015.[233] Clougherty withdrew her suit that fall as well.[234]

Non-alumni former and current faculty, staff, and researchers who received the Turing Award:

Whitfield Diffie: BS mathematics Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1965. Visiting scholar at Stanford 2009–2010 and an affiliate from 2010–2012; currently a consulting professor at CISAC (The Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University).[27]

^The rules governing the board have changed over time. The original 24 trustees were appointed for life in 1885 by the Stanfords as were some of the subsequent replacements. In 1899 Jane Stanford changed the maximum number of trustees from 24 to 15 and set the term of office to 10 years. On June 1, 1903, she resigned her powers as founder and the board took on its full powers. In the 1950s the board decided that 15 members was not sufficient to do all the work needed and in March 1954 petitioned the courts to raise the maximum number to 23, of whom 20 would be regular trustees serving 10-year terms and 3 would be alumni trustees serving 5-year terms. In 1970 another petition was successfully made to have the number raised to a maximum of 35 (with a minimum of 25), that all trustees would be just trustees and that the university president would be a trustee ex officio.[72] The last original trustee, Timothy Hopkins, died in 1936; the last life trustee, Joseph D. Grant appointed in 1891 died in 1942.[73]

^Steffen, Nancy L. (May 20, 1964). "The Claw: White Plaza Dedication". Stanford Daily. Retrieved December 11, 2016. Has information on the White brothers that slightly corrects some of the facts in other articles.

^"About Fleet Street". Retrieved August 29, 2017. Because Fleet Street maintains Stanford songs as a regular part of its performing repertoire, the university used the group as ambassadors during the University's centennial celebration and commissioned an album, entitled Up Toward Mountains Higher (1999), of Stanford songs which were sent to alumni around the world.

^This chapter had voiced concern that women were being treated unfairly due to the campus ban on sororities. Nu Deuteron Chapter voted to become co-ed in 1973, relinquishing its charter over the matter, according to fraternity records (accessed November 17, 2016). This occurred just four years before the ban on sororities was ended by the Regents.

^"The History of Big Game Gaieties". Ram's Head Theatrical Society. Archived from the original on December 15, 2012. Retrieved October 5, 2013. The Big Game Gaieties started in 1911 (when the Big Game was rugby) but did not acquire its present name until the 1920s when it also became part of Rams Head. The tradition was dormant from 1968 until revived in 1976 and has run ever since.

^Levy, Dawn (July 22, 2003). "Edward Teller wins Presidential Medal of Freedom". Retrieved November 17, 2008. Teller, 95, is the third Stanford scholar to be awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. The others are Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (1988) and former Secretary of State George Shultz (1989).